An exercise in thinking: a left wing alternative

Labour governments are moderate governments. That is an obvious statement which needs no explaining. By their strategy of accepting the capitalist settlement, not pushing too hard against the holders of financial and economic power in society, and relying on slow and evolutionary change in a modestly progressive direction, they hope to make life a little better for most people over time.

It is a modest ambition and comes from the modest aspirations of Labour parties in general. These days Labour parties are not revolutionary movements. Bryce Edwards highlights this in his commentary on this year's Budget, for example.

At the present time, with the configuration of political and media interests being what it is, and the Labour Party organisation and campaigning ability being what it is, the prospects of passing a very different kind of budget are zero. It is however interesting to think about what a really left-wing government could have been doing (and would already have done) in 2007.

Imagine, if you will, a situation where the Labour Party and the Alliance re-united in 1994, rather than not, and that as a result the Labour Party of today was a much more left wing creature than it is. (Practically this was never going to happen for a huge range of reasons, but bear with me). Imagine that this more left wing Labour party, with a wider activist base and a more radical policy and caucus, had taken power in 1999, aided by the Greens as a coalition partner.

What then? Here are a few predictions about what life would be like in New Zealand in 2007:

• Health spending would be sitting around 9-10% of GDP and the issues of waiting lists and costs of care in the public health system would not exist.
• The 1991 benefit cuts would have been reversed, with inflation taken into account, and there would have been a redistribution of the tax system to put more money into the hands of lower income families, and out of the hands of higher income ones.
• The industrial relations system would have been recollectivised, with an awards system restored and a far stronger union movement leading to higher real wages for working Kiwis.
• Tertiary, early childhood, vocational education and training would be free at point of use, and more people would be taking it up. The student loans scheme would have been dismantled and student support would be generous.
• Nation-wide investment in public transport would have been far higher over the past decade, with new lines and new rolling stock on the railways in particular.
• New Zealand would have focused economic policy on local production, not acceded any further into the WTO system, and retained some levels of protection on local industry. The country would not be negotiating free trade agreements with anyone.
• New Zealand's distribution of income would be moving solidly in a more egalitarian direction, with much higher taxation on high income earners and corresponding cuts to the tax burden and increased family support for low income families.
• There would be steps towards a Kiwi Republic which put the Treaty relationship into a modern, bicultural context.
• Public spending would be at around 42-44% of GDP, around 10 percentage points (~$17bn a year) higher than it is today.
• There would be a campaigning, ideas and institutional structure backing all this and allowing this sort of government to be re-elected.

Those are just a few ideas, there are no doubt many more.

What I find interesting about such a list is that in some respects it simply builds on what the current Labour administration has achieved. There is a discernible and tangible progressive, social-democratic element to Labour's current programme.

In some areas - those pertaining to the economic programme of a left government - the direction is opposite to Labour and the contrast stark.

The interesting thing for those on the left of politics like Bryce is to work out ways in which the above list could seem like a viable programme for a left of centre government.

I suspect that it would require an effort on a similar scale to the international organisation of the neoliberal right over the past thirty years: think tanks, academics, organisation, conscious engagement with politics, clever thinking about how to frame debates, etc. It would not be a small project. It isn't a project that is well suited to most of the "left" activists I know in New Zealand, who are more comforable bemoaning the alleged failings of Labour governments than they are in doing anything practical about them.

Such a programme is unthinkable in 2007. It wouldn't work. It is not a lack of political will do move in a more progressive direction that is the issue. It is unthinkable because the public don't want it. They don't want it because nobody has persuaded them of the merits of a more left wing approach.

I wonder if, in the future of politics in this country, anyone will ever try to do so?

Comments

[bobrien]

Ah yes, the good old North Korean Model, and why not.

[David Baigent]

Good to see you have the comments back on..
Every thinking person needs all faculties working if they are to remain relevant.

Your quote.
"Here are a few predictions about what life would be like in New Zealand in 2007"....

I appreciate that this is a "what if" list and that you identify the fact that Labour is a more moderate party.

However to me the list is, in part, "truely frightening" as I believe that moderation is a temporary phenomenon and when the appetite is whetted thought and moderation go out the window.

My question is: What do you do about the ever present "unintended consequences" of accelerating the move towards moderating the moderation..??

[tim barclay]

What is clear is there would not be a left future in NZ. Nor anywhere else for that matter. That philosophy is dead. There is room for a left of centre Government mainly to Govern if people have a problem with the National Party. Indeed we only get Labour Governments when there is a problem in the National Party. A moderate centre-right National Party focused on what is practical is what New Zealanders want and now National has come "home" under John Key the party is resonating with New Zealanders in droves. You are finished, I hope for good.

[Zutroy]

"Labour governments are moderate governments." Apart from the Fourth Labour government. And the "black budget" government of the Nash 2nd Labour government. The first Labour government wasn't that moderate either, bringing in a cradle to the grave welfare system. So uhh, apart from those three examples, your statement might be accurate.

[BD]

You got it right Jordan, the public actually DO NOT WANT IT

[Aucklander At Large]

We have a governmence agreements with United Future and New Zealand First - the only way this Labour government could become more "moderate" would be if it went into coalition with the National Party.

[Adolf Fiinkensein]

Jordan, the good ship Labour has just hit an ice berg and is sinking. So what do you do? Commence writing a symphony for the ships band?

[Joe Hendren]

Jordan,

I think it is pretty well established that Labour have drifted right again over the three terms they have been in government. Perhaps you should not be so ready to blame others for the Labour party lacking vision.

The direction of the programme you outlined would have been more likely if the Alliance had replaced the Labour party as the major party of the left in 1994. It nearly happened. If a few more people had based their party membership on policy and what they actually believed in, rather than party branding, we may have got there.

Without the existence of the Alliance in the first half of the 1990s the time the Labour party would be even more right wing than it is now (the Act people may have stayed and Goff might be the leader). Without the Alliance Labour would have had no reason to change. You can see this by comparing the policy of the Labour party in 1993 and 1996.

Not that I am saying Labour has changed enough to even contemplate the programe you outlined - it hasn't. It may have lost the neo-liberal crusading zeal in some areas (it retains it in trade policy), but this didn't equate to a desire to undo anything the forth Labour Governemnt did. While Labour reversed some of National's policies - they hardly touched their own.

Nor I do not believe it is fair for you to blame the left for failing to advocate an alternative. The Labour party need to take some responsibility for this too - since 1984 Labour have attempted to sell NZ a very limited version of social democracy - if you could even call it that. Labour party ministers regularly defend the neoliberal economy.

The fact that Government spending as a percentage of GDP is now lower than it was under National is not a record any self described social democratic government should be proud of. Perhaps if people had seen more significant increases into health eduction and housing people now would not be so ready to ask for tax cuts.

[Damian]

Joe,

I agree - I think the best articulated argument of your point was from Chris Trotter in (I think this is the book) New Zealand Government & Politics (edited by Raymond Miller). His article was about the Alliance as a political party pre-2002

[GNZ]

> and that as a result the Labour Party of today was a much more left wing creature than it is.

Then you would have lost a fair share of the elections. You might either have allowed national to be more or less like labour is now (maybe even fiscally conservative etc) Or allowed them to drift right under someone like brash and still have been handed an election or two on a plate.

> The issues of waiting lists and costs of care in the public health system would not exist.

Waiting lists are a function not only of funding but also of how many groups you allow on and how you create medical professionals. For example you can make it all free and still give the same amount of people the same operations. I don't think either party in NZ has the ability to deal with either of those issues.

> The 1991 benefit cuts would have been reversed, with inflation taken into account, and there would have been a redistribution of the tax system

That’s not even all that ambitious. Shows something...

> Tertiary, early childhood, vocational education and training would be free at point of use, and more people would be taking it up.

A lot of this is about capacity and use of resources and control of resources rather than just being free. For example universities throttle intake into popular courses with grades etc.

> There would be steps towards a Kiwi Republic which put the Treaty relationship into a modern, bicultural context.

There are such steps are there not?

> Public spending would be at around 42-44% of GDP, around 10 percentage points (~$17bn a year) higher than it is today.

What would our interest rate be? 20%?

> "institutional structure backing all this and allowing this sort of government to be re-elected."

hehehe pesky elections....

[Peter]

It is unthinkable because the public don't want it. They don't want it because nobody has persuaded them of the merits of a more left wing approach

Your premise seems to be that New Zealanders reject the left-wing approach out of ignorance but are you sure that is really the case? Social-democratic programmes in New Zealand have a long history. Collectively, New Zealanders should have a better idea than most of the benefits and limitations of socialism.

It's interesting that you think a long-term and no doubt lavishly-funded campaigns will be necessary to keep your hypothetical left-wing government in power. Surely if the benefits are as good as you say they will be, people won't need to be "educated" about them?

[Oliver]

If you did that then we'd be comfortable for a few years untill the money ran out, all the best people were in Australia, every man and his dog was on a benefit and when the govt got so broke they'd have to do rogernomics all over again to avoid going terminally bankrupt.

Face it Jordan, wishful thinking won't make poll results turn around.

[dave]

Health spending would be sitting around 9-10% of GDP and the issues of waiting lists and costs of care in the public health system would not exist.

That is the level of health spending in the USA which has far more chronic delivery problems for a bigger proportion of the population than we do.

Every country has found that demand for healthcare is infinite. The entire GDP could be spent on it without reducing waiting lists, demands for more operations and new drugs and technology etc.

I think we are doing rather well in healthcare. The many critics are not aware that the same arguments are raging in every comparable country. If you don't believe me, go to the websites of newspapers in the UK, Australia, Canada and the US just for starters.

The present government has engaged 1000 more doctors and 4000 more nurses (something you never hear from the critics or the media), without any noticeable difference in the public clamour. The clamour has always been with us and always will be. Michael Bassett called it "shroud waving" when he was health minister and it's an apt description.

[GNZ]

Labour should try raising a big issue to cover up for their issues lately

1) add a new top tax rate and cut low/midle taxes heavily
2) have a green policy more green than national can politically manage
3) suport Hone's bill
4) be green party agressive about anti whaling

[Clint Heine]

Thought provoking but completely impossible - then, now or anytime in NZ history. And I don't particularly want any more Kiwis living in West London with me, there are too many here already - refugees of the Clarkistan regime!

Don't see how putting health expenditure up will eliminate the waiting lists. You guys lost 4 billion recently which didn't do a lick of difference.

[Mark]

How is this hypothetical far-left Government to pursade all the high-income high-taxpaying earners to remain in New Zealand? If a whole heap of them leave (which they will), who is going to pay for this Utopia?

[ben]

Jordan, believing more funding for health care under the current model will eliminate waiting lists is strikingly lacking in insight. Without making any judgments on the merits of the current system, has it not occurred to you that waiting lists are a product of a zero price, and that waiting lists with higher funding could increase because the reward for reaching the front of the queue is larger. That has been the New Zealand experience these last 8 years. Waiting lists have not gone away, don't even look like disappearing, in spite of very large increases in public funding.

Queuing is a universal phenomenon whenever goods are priced below a market rate. You see it in countries that force petrol prices below market rates, you saw it in the Soviet Union (in 1989 citizens queued for between 40 and 68 hours each month, see http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/shleifer/papers/normal_country_jep.pdf), and you see it in health care everywhere in the world where price is zero.

What insights can you bring when you so completely fail to understand the obvious?